Cody’s Books

Recent Stories

UC Berkeley and property owner Ken Sarachan are close to a joint-venture development deal for the long-empty lot at the north-east corner of Haste and Telegraph, which means that new student housing might be in place there by August 2017.

In March 2014, Jake Silverstein was tapped for one of the top jobs in journalism: the editorship of the New York Times Magazine. A 1993 graduate of Berkeley High School, Silverstein, 39, has deep roots — and a deep affinity — for Berkeley. Surprisingly, he didn’t write for the Berkeley HighJacket, but he did pen stories for the high school’s literary magazine and acted with an independent theater group. His first real professional journalism piece was an East Bay Express story on Ed Gong, the famed piano mover.

On Feb. 28, 1989, around 4:30 a.m., someone threw a molotov cocktail through the window of Cody’s on Telegraph Avenue because the bookstore was carrying Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses.’ Waldenbooks on Telegraph was also firebombed. The culprit was never captured. Andy Ross owned Cody’s Books for 30 years, from 1977 to 2007. Now a literary agent, Ross reflects back on the events of 25 years ago. This article first appeared on his website: Ask The Agent: Night Thoughts About Books and Publishing.